Rice students prove that theater can be more than a recreation of fictional narrative — it can connect students to pressing issues within the Rice community, like sexual harassment and assault. The Speak Up Project is a new student-orientated theater initiative that shares anonymous stories from sexual harassment survivors. The project’s authors, Wiess College senior Vicky Comesanas and Hanszen College junior Lindsay Bonnen, hope that it will add to Rice’s already-established sexual harassment initiatives, like campus policies and Project Safe.According to Comesanas, the Speak Up Project addresses the difficult “after the fact” part of sexual violence, which she believes is missing from many discussions.“We want to start a conversation,” Comesanas said. “A lot of people don’t realize that victims are on campus.”Student survivors confirm that the Speak Up Project addresses an issue that is absent from the Rice conversation about sexual assault. “The fact that Vicky was easily able to receive stories from so many Rice students about their experiences [shows] that this happens all the time,” a student, who submitted a story and asked to remain anonymous, said. “Imagine how many more stories are out there having no audience.” The first part of the project involves gathering anonymous stories from Rice students about situations that have occurred at Rice or elsewhere. The stories, unedited and anonymous, will then be recreated by actresses. Comesanas believes theater is the perfect medium for difficult conversations. “Theater has an ability to represent [someone] without forcing that person to be on stage,” she said. “Over the summer, I began thinking that there [are] ways to use poetry and theater for social activism.”The project has two main goals: to create a community to talk about sexual harassment on campus and to provide victims with a safe forum through which to share their stories. “If someone can’t raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, this happened to me,’ that person can write it down,” Comesanas said. “Someone else then shares that burden and acts out that story — that can be healing.”Writing also provides student victims with a way to share stories that are often difficult to bring up with family members, friends or even professionals. “I felt like every time in the past I had to try to talk about my experiences, someone had shut me down or silenced me in some way,” another anonymous student writer said. “I’m not angry at these people — these are all normal reactions to a very hard issue. That being said, it was very hard to have something so traumatic happen and feel like it was so shut inside of me. This project gives me a chance to truly put all these feelings and thoughts out there.”Comesanas hopes that the Speak Up Project, although not a solution for sexual harassment issues, will at least break the ice on a difficult discussion. “Obviously, it’s not a solution,” Comesanas said. “There’s not a magical cure-all. But if this can help and this can get people talking and being sensitive about things that happen on campus, I think it’s a good start.”The Speak Up Project is set to premiere March 18

I attended a preview of the new Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, exhibit “Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River” amongst a crowd much more knowledgeable than I, both in the works of Monet and art in general. Slightly intimidated by fluent French speakers and people who have mastered the furrowed-brow-painting-examination method, I resigned myself to enjoy the impressive collection in my own, plebian way. While I cannot exactly quantify the pleasure I took from the paintings, I can say that, despite my lack of expertise, I was undoubtedly moved by Monet’s depictions of the Seine that are precise yet abstract, realistic yet magical. The exhibit divides Monet’s works into a series of rooms that follow a chronological and geographical progression, highlighting both his fascination with the Seine and his evolution as an impressionist painter.According to MFAH Director Gary Tinterow, the Seine became instrumental for Monet in developing his style of impressionist painting. “The Seine was without question [Monet’s] most important motif,” Tinterow said. “It is Monet’s river, and for that we treasure it.”Because his subject is water, Monet fixates on the idea of reflection. Present in almost all of his paintings of the Seine is a horizon line dividing the canvas in half, which enables him to project mirror images of the landscape onto the water.“It was critical to his career and revelation as an artist,” Tinterow said. “He discovered that putting his horizon line more or less midway … was an inexhaustible device.”Helga K. Aurisch, curator of European art and co-curator of the exhibition, also spoke to this uncanny symmetry. “Some of these we could’ve hung upside down and you would never know,” Aurisch said. The reflections, for me, were truly the most remarkable and beautiful aspect of the paintings. Short brushstrokes, characteristic of impressionist style, exquisitely capture water’s reflective qualities. The exhibition, which includes more than 50 paintings in total (an impressive feat, considering the difficulty of achieving Monet loans), culminates with one of Monet’s more famous series, “Mornings on the Seine”, which was also the inspiration for the project. According to Tanya Paul, Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and co-curator of the exhibition, the series was instrumental in securing his role as the father of French landscape painting. The exhibition will be on view through Feb. 1 in the Law Building of MFAH. Student discount tickets available.

Dear white people. With so much meaning behind these three tiny words, Dear White People has the potential to move in many directions. Director Justin Simien, a Houston native, must have agreed, working an impressive array of characters and subplots into his first film. Although the character development is not extensive and the plot not entirely smooth in execution, Dear White People is undoubtedly an important film. In an era in which films that bring up the issue of racism tend to be dark, depressing and difficult to watch, Dear White People attacks the issue from a completely new angle — humor. But the film is much more than a satiric attack on racist white college kids — it is an exploration of identity, activism and acceptance. The film follows the lives of four students at Winchester University, an Ivy-League-type school on the East Coast with few black students. First, there is Samantha (Tessa Thompson) — formidable, funny and invariably well-dressed. Samantha is the host of her own witty radio show, “Dear White People,” whose first broadcast reads, “Dear White People, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two.” Immediately, Sam comes off as bold and unafraid to speak her mind, a trait that is both her weapon and enemy at various points in the film. Troy (Brandon Bell), the son of the dean of undergraduates at Winchester, is the popular college president who aims to please his demanding father. Coco (Teyonah Parris) wants to be famous above all else and refuses to be defined by her race, going out of her way to isolate herself from her black peers. Finally, there’s Lionel (Tyler James Williams), the gay black kid who doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere. Racism takes many forms in Dear White People, not just in obvious ways, although these do happen, but also in more subtle ways. The most blatant example is an argument between Sam and Kurt (Kyle Gallner), the ignorant, privileged white boy and son of the president of the university, over whether he and his friends can eat in the historically black dorm. While this incident is an explicit attack, racism also appears in subtler ways and even in positive contexts. In one instance, a girl tries to complement Coco on her hair, making the horrifying pitfall of asking, “Is it weaved?”, a comment which Coco later addresses in a blog post: “It’s weave. Noun. Present tense.” Case two: Troy’s white girlfriend makes a comment about her boyfriend’s penis size in relation to his race and is confused when he is offended, saying she thought he would enjoy the compliment.The issue of identity and how black students feel as though they must “pick a side” is probably most vivid in Lionel’s case. Being black and gay, he doesn’t feel like he fits in with the white homosexual students or the black activists. In one scene, in which the BSA questions him about his refusal to join, he comments, “I listen to Mumford and Sons and watch Robert Alton movies; think I’m black enough for the union?” Race and identity emerge again when Troy asks Lionel, “Is it harder to be too black for the white kids, or too white for the black kids?” His reply is simple yet poignant: “Both.”But if the issue of racism at Winchester wasn’t clear before, the final scene, in which white students throw a black-themed party (this is loosely based on true events), drives the point home. Sam decides to take a new approach to her activism here, a much more subtle one, while Lionel takes a more active one. At this point, the movie completely transforms — witty comments and jokes seem distant now, and the audience must face the harsh reality of racism that is offensive, scary and disheartening. The slow-motion shots and lingering cinematography make this scene especially uncomfortable and important in demonstrating that racism is still alive and well, even among bright and future-driven students. The movie hit a soft spot for me here — if it hadn’t made me think critically and seriously before, it certainly had my attention now. Answering the “Who am I?” question is challenging enough for college students, but Dear White People shows how this already difficult journey can be even further complicated by racism. I think it’s important and humbling, especially for us as students at a top university, to think critically about these issues and remember that the conversation about racism is far from over. In fact, with Dear White People, it may have only just begun.

In his recent book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Dr. Atul Gawande confronts an inevitability that the modern world of medicine — and frankly, society — would rather not discuss: death. Beginning with an anecdote about the young doctor as a medical school student, naive in the ways in which the difficulties of accepting mortality would affect his career, Gawande describes his experiences with senescence, terminal illnesses and the limits of medicine in preserving life. Gawande’s work is a call to action: He asks not just the medical profession to reconsider its approach to death, but also all of his readers to come to terms with the limits of the human condition. Gawande’s accounts of patients aging and the body’s inevitable deterioration are both disturbing and fascinating. In detailed descriptions of tooth decay and brain shrinkage, Gawande gives a straightforward analysis of what happens when a complex system begins to fail. The most heart-wrenching stories in the book, however, are the terminally-ill cases, in which both patients and doctors must navigate the difficult question of how to proceed after diagnosis. From prescription medications to chemotherapy to the latest experimental drugs, there is certainly no shortage of options when it comes to end-of-life care, but treatment can sometimes come at a great cost — namely, quality of life. His chief concern becomes the ways in which our system of life-prolonging technology fails to properly confront the issue of mortality and meet the needs of the very people it aims to benefit. One of the reasons for this failure, Gawande notes, is both doctors and patients are reluctant to have harsh, reality-facing conversations. In the chapter “Hard Conversations,” Gawande discusses the difficulty in talking about mortality with patients. He describes one particularly moving case in which a 34-year-old female is diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer in her third trimester of pregnancy and his struggle to bring up the issue of death and her goals for the end of life. Of course, Gawande notes, there is always the chance of being an exception to the rule. Sometimes, terminally-ill patients live long past what statistics would predict. But, he cautions, basing an entire medical approach on this hope is unfair to the patients and their loved ones and can be incredibly costly. “We have created a multi-trillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets,” Gawande said.Gawande’s main concern, then, is that the conversations about end-of-life care tend to involve a risk-benefit analysis and don’t fully consider what the top priorities of the patients are — to not suffer, to not be a burden on their caregivers and to have a sense of completeness with their lives. According to Gawande, this consideration should become part of the responsibility of medical professionals. “We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine,” Gawande writes. “We think our job is to ensure health and survival, but really it is larger than that: it is to enable wellbeing, and wellbeing is about the reasons one wishes to be alive.”But the equation for how to approach death is not universal, nor is it fixed. Determining the limitations of modern medicine’s capabilities is difficult and often painful. In a particularly touching section near the end of the book, Gawande describes his own experience helping his father through the decision to pursue treatment or to let nature take its course. “Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life,” Gawande writes. Being Mortal is honest, thorough and, at times, hard to read — stories of individuals coming to terms with their own and their loved ones’ mortality is heart-wrenching, but Gawande’s clear medical analyses and personal insights make his work both grounded and profound. Through anecdote and fact, Gawande dives headfirst into a topic that most are reluctant to bridge and some never willing to confront. His contributions to the conversations about senescence and terminally-ill patients are undoubtedly important, but his most significant insight is in redefining the role that doctors can play in discussing mortality.“I never expected that among the most meaningful experiences I’d have as a doctor, and really, as a human being, would come from helping others deal with what medicine cannot do, as well as what it can,” Gawande writes.

Singing clouds with faces, walking tree women and bowls of pasta that breed reptiles may be the stuff of nightmares, but there is something strangely satisfying about seeing such uncanny images unfold in real time. Creature Worlds, the latest video installation at RG Cubicle (also known as Rice Gallery video space), is both bizarre and intriguing. It’s the kind of art that makes you question whether or not you need hallucinogens to understand it properly. Situated to the left of Rice Gallery, RG Cubicle is a converted office space that now operates as a small theater. Eight to 10 gray foam cubes serve as seats for moviegoers, and the screen, which spans an entire wall, fosters an almost 3-D experience. Creature Worlds is a compilation of six short animated videos from professional working artists. Using simple techniques, such as stop-motion animation, each artist creates a universe full of creatures (both imaginary and recognizable) that move, grow, shrink, morph, disfigure and refigure to form unconventional patterns of evolution. Produced in black and white, KUNCHI is the shortest of the bunch. It is best described as a procession of biotic blobs, ranging from triangles with eyes to what appear to be walking mushrooms. The musical accompaniment, a series of dissonant xylophone sounds, is both upbeat and disconcerting. Cloudy, the longest of the six shorts, is also the lightest in tone. Created by FriendsWithYou, it centers on a factory in the sky in which singing clouds and smiling raindrops perform their “daily duties.” Although bizarre in conception, I found this short strangely satisfying. The harmony of tasks and happy music lend the film a productive and fulfilling feeling, like watching a video of Santa’s elves at work. Ever wonder what happens when you abandon a bowl of noodles for a minute? According to No Noodles, it erupts into a chorus of aquatic and prehistoric creatures. No Noodles is produced using claymation, which allows the animator to transform one creature into another in one fluid motion. The Leaf Woman and the Centaur serves as an expression of different creationist theories. Set against a black, cosmic backdrop, a mythical leaf woman is the creator whose seeds give birth to life in vibrant colors. Accompanied by a classical soundtrack, The Leaf Woman is both beautiful and expressive. In Dissimilated Vision, a single pencil line becomes a myriad of human features that morph from faces to hands to eyes to mouths. The takeaway is that the human form can be tactfully reduced to a series of similar and interconnected shapes. With dissonant, soft music, the film becomes eerie, but the sketches are simple yet elegant. Similar to KUNCHI, USAWALTZ features a parade of creatures in black and white, this time swimming across the scene as if trapped in an aquarium. The soothing, a cappella music is catchy and triumphant without being overwhelming. What is Creature Worlds but a picture of raw imagination? Although none of the mini-universes converge, they each capture some aspect of life beyond reality, something uniquely envisioned. When I stepped into the exhibition on a quiet Saturday morning, temporarily frozen by the utter pitch-blackness of the theater, I was at first skeptical. But, overwhelmed by such fantastic images, I had no choice but to dive headfirst into the bizarre and wonderful. Creature Worlds is on display in RG Cubicle through Nov. 23 during normal Gallery hours.

If rockstars can have tour buses, so can visual artists. Cargo Space, the brainchild of Christopher Sperandio, an assistant professor in the Rice University Visual and Dramatic Arts Department, and Simon Grennan, who Sperandio has worked with since 1989, is a Rice inner-loop bus turned mobile arts phenomenon.With teeth, eyes and cartoon designs plastering its exterior, the converted diesel bus looks like any other hippie platform on the outside. But instead of old guitars, smoke and Bob Marley posters, the inside boasts up to five visual artists at any given time. “Cargo Space itself is a living space, but it’s a lot of other things too,” Sperandio said. “It’s an experiment in alternate living schemes.”For the past month and a half, Cargo Space has been touring the Midwest, spanning the 90 miles between the cities of Chicago and Milwaukee. In addition to transporting art back and forth between the cities, Cargo Space engages artists at both the Institute of Visual Arts in Milwaukee and the A+D Gallery in Chicago. “They are distinct cities with distinct histories, yet they don’t interact as much as you think they would,” Sperandio said. “I thought it would be interesting for the artists to play host to each other and develop exhibitions simultaneously.”Although its exhibitions encompass strictly visual art, Cargo Space is anything but your run-of-the-mill gallery. Sperandio said current projects range from an underground poker tournament, whose champion donates all of his winnings to an artist, to a weekly tea party to a bulletin board that, according to Sperandio, resembles a pushpin collage. Cargo Space is many experiments, but its larger purpose is to connect artists and provide them with residency, an important key to success in today’s art world, according to Sperandio. “A big part of being an artist now is involving yourself in these residencies,” Sperandio said. “I wanted to develop my own facility where I could invite artists to come and spend time with me, to connect with artists across the county.”Sperandio said the trip for such a unique artistic experiment has not been an easy one, but its success over the past year assures its vitality. “I know that sounds maybe a little ego-maniacal, but it’s a very good artwork,” Sperando said. “And it’s [been] a very difficult project – from generating enthusiasm and support, to just the little day to day physical work that has to be done on the bus in order to make it what it is.”But his work has not gone unnoticed and, in addition to being embraced by formal art institutions across the country, Sperandio said his project is also a “selfie magnet.”When its Midwest exhibition ends on Sept. 20, Cargo Space will pack its bags and return to Houston to begin another journey. “I’m going to be on the road for another three weeks or so, and then I’ll be back in Houston with a lot of stories to tell,” Sperandio said. Cargo Space’s near future is still undecided, but Sperandio said he hopes to send it south. “We’re next door neighbors to a foreign country,” Sperandio said. “I would love to take the bus to Mexico City. That would be the next great step for the project.”

As an only child of two working parents, it’s safe to say I have spent a fair portion of my life, or at least childhood, alone. Although I often joke about this to friends (which, by the way, I definitely do have), I think learning to be alone has its merits. As I’ve gotten older and, through a combination of circumstance and conscious choice, spent more and more time around peers, I have begun to lament the fact that I am growing less fond of doing things by myself. To counteract this apparent transformation of my social needs, I sometimes purposely plan activities alone. Movies, music and even dining out are often characterized as strictly social outings, but here I plan to tell you why they don’t have to be. I am not telling anyone to ditch their social lives, or embrace the stereotype of the weird loner (although I am not advocating against these choices either); I am simply saying that there are real reasons why going out alone doesn’t have to be a sad occasion. 1. You can do whatever you want. When you go out with friends, you are subject to the will of the majority in terms of plans. Everyone wants to go see that Jennifer Aniston rom-com that got 23 percent on Rotten Tomatoes? I guess you’re going. They are dying to see a heavy metal band that’s so alternative, they aren’t even really a band? Buy some earplugs. But, alone, the world is full of options. You can even do embarrassing activities secretly, like go to a live viewing of Antiques Roadshow (is this possible?) or a Transformers convention. 2. You set your own schedule. Not only do you have ultimate freedom of activity choice but also freedom of activity time. Treat yourself to a Sunday afternoon by visiting a Texans game without your overly inquisitive girlfriend being overly inquisitive. Maybe you are 90 percent sure that you just failed your intro econ test for the second time, and the only cure to your depression is immediate frozen yogurt consumption. Don’t wait for anyone. Get your butt to Red Mango pronto. Pile on all of the toppings. Eat only toppings. Go twice in one day. No one is judging you. 3. You have better control of your environment. So there’s this movie you’ve been dying to see for months, and it turns out all your friends are dying to see it too. Yay! You get early tickets, wait excitedly in line, buy your $14 popcorn and sit down to enjoy the show. The problem? It turns out your friends have so much enthusiasm they can’t seem to contain their excitement until after the film. Instead of listening to Javier Bardem’s beautiful words, you are hearing those of your seatmate. The fix? Go solo! I promise, it’s not weird. Not only will you catch all of the movie’s nuances, plot twists and action montages, but you also don’t have to worry about finding 17 seats in a row in a crowded theater. 4. You can people watch. Your friends are cool, but you also see them all the time. Like always. And it’s not your friends, it’s other Rice students (who are basically also like your friends). So when do you get a chance to see, you know, the mysterious others lurking just outside the hedges? When you go out with your friends, there’s basically a veil of conversation that keeps you from paying them any mind. Imagine, instead of sitting at a crowded table with your crew, picking a window seat at the bar and watching the passersby. There are so many interesting weirdos to be seen and maybe, if you look pensive and intriguing enough, even talk to. Who knows, you may even inadvertently expand your social circle. Going out alone doesn’t mean you’re a loner; it just means that you are taking advantage of your time, free will and the world of culture at your fingertips.

Daniel Anguilu is a Houston METRORail operator by trade and a muralist by passion. His work has appeared in Houston, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Italy and Turkey and is on permanent display at the Houston METRORail Operations Center.

Ever since 1980, the Thresher has scouted the finest of the Rice theater scene to present its annual Sammy’s awards. From talking vaginas to man-eating plants to enchanted fairies, there was certainly a wealth of creativity, ingenuity and raw talent in this year’s crop of productions. This year, the Sammy’s were selected by a special group of students involved in Rice theater: McMurtry College sophomore Rachel Landsman, Duncan College freshman Yena Han, Wiess College senior Ian Bott and Hanszen College freshman Rachel Buissereth. These panelists have each carefully selected the winners according to their own respective judgements:

Chris Eska is a film writer, director and editor whose most recent film, The Retrieval, will open Friday, April 18 at the Sundance Cinemas: Theatre Houston. The Retrieval tells the story of a young boy on the outskirts of the Civil War who is sent north by his bounty hunter to retrieve a wanted man.

In her Best Actress acceptance speech for her role in Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett admonished Hollywood for marginalizing films with female protagonists, chiding “those ... in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences.”

First off, we want to start by saying we are not attempting to represent all populations at Rice, and we know our point of view can't be generalized to every individual. However, our conversations with many Rice students have demonstrated that others have shared similar experiences to us in terms of Rice dating culture.We have heard the same story over and over again: "What's our relationship status?" or "Our 'relationship' isn't a real relationship." Bottom line, Rice dating-culture is strange, complex and confusing. Though it's fairly easy to meet people, and there always seems to be plenty of students in long-term relationships, it seems to be extremely difficult for Rice students to casually date. The issue is that the norm for starting relationships at Rice is very atypical as compared with adult dating culture. Apathetic hook-ups flow into serious commitments in which neither individual has had a chance to truly get to know his or her new partner. This makes communication awkward from the beginning and consequently the relationship is doomed from the get-go. We think part of the problem lies in the stereotypes surrounding commitment at Rice. Guys don't ask girls on dates for fear of immediate commitment and girls, afraid of being viewed as "clingy," don't push for them. It certainly makes a relationship difficult to establish when neither party wants to admit that he or she is committing to being monogamous. What results from these interactions is either nothing (most of the time) or a doomed-from-the-start relationship in which neither partner is able to sustain conversation or can hang out without hooking up. Let's look at an example - say one of us was dating a guy named Matt. Matt and I were casual acquaintances for a while, until one night at a party (after heavy alcohol consumption) he confessed he had a crush on me. We proceeded to hook-up that night and several other nights for a couple of weeks. Eventually, we decided we wanted to try to be together exclusively. We hung out a little, but I was nervous around him and I think he felt the same way so we barely talked. Then, one day, he simply cut off all communication. I, confused, but afraid of being "clingy," did not confront him about it. Instead, I obsessed about what I could have done that had turned him off so suddenly and built up a lot of anger, sadness and frustration. When he finally texted me out of the blue a couple of weeks later, I admittedly had a, perhaps not unwarranted, "psychobitch" reaction. He apologized, we made up and the cycle repeated itself two or three more times until we were both so emotionally and mentally exhausted that the relationship was completely unsalvageable. Now, we don't speak at all. It's impossible to say, but I believe that much stress and anxiety could have been avoided if we had taken more time to get to know each other, gone on a few dates and not put so much pressure on sustaining a relationship right off the bat.Despite our reservations, we do think there are tangible solutions to this problem and believe there is hope for the future romantic lives of Rice students. First, guys need not fear that asking a girl on a date is committing to a relationship, and this applies to girls as well. Also, guys, if a girl asks you on a date, don't freak out: It's the 21st century Just go with it and see what happens. A date is not a binding clause; it's more of a test to see if two people can hold a conversation together and (hopefully) enjoy each other's company. Second, girls need to stop being afraid of being "clingy." What is "clingy," anyway? Texting your interest to check in, asking him/her out for a night or wanting to discuss the nature of your relationship or your feelings? Obviously there is a line between committed boyfriend/girlfriend and maniac stalker but don't hesitate to do what seems natural to develop or maintain intimacy. All in all, we feel that it is possible to create a more normal dating culture here at Rice. There is a middle ground between serious, long-term relationships and drunken one night stands, and it starts with dating. This Valentine's Day, or whenever, really, ask someone out and see what happens. Maybe it will be awesomely romantic, maybe it will be terrible, or maybe it will just be a pleasantly platonic conversation. No matter what, it will be a noble and necessary plunge into the wonderful world of casual dating. Kaylen Strench and Sophie Newman are Thresher Arts & Entertainment Editors

Stepping into the gallery, smooth jazz music is playing softly and five or so artists are hard at work covering a snaking frame of wood with layers of bubble wrap and black plastic trash bags. Arches, plastered in vivid blue and red stickers, stretch above like gateways. It feels like entering the set of Dr. Seuss's Oh, the

Local artist Chris Cascio's new exhibit, Color Sickness, will be on display in the EMERGEncy Room Gallery in Sewall Hall Nov. 14 - Dec. 18 with an opening reception Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. By arranging an array of colorful scarves as a backdrop for fluorescently patterned paintings, Cascio said he hopes to create an atmosphere that is "provocative with sheer amount of color."

Tragedy is a familiar theme in the realm of theater, but few plots center on the aftermath of tragedy, rather than the action of it. Rabbit Hole, a 2005 play written by David Lindsay-Abaire that both won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was turned into a hit 2010 drama starring Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!), achieves just this. The Rice Players' Rabbit Hole, directed by Rice Players alum Rob Kimbro and produced by Hanszen College senior Michael Hollis, opened Thursday, Oct. 3.

EMERGEncy Room Gallery, a gallery located in Sewall Hall and run by the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts will be debuting a new exhibit beginning Sept. 26. Entitled "Help Yourself," this special presentation is the product of a collaborative effort between artists Ariane Roesch and Mark Ponder. The purpose of this joint effort is to display themes of the aspects of self-help pervasive in our culture through sculpture, video and song. Ponder will contribute a video, which will be shown in conjunction with three of Roesch's ladder sculptures. The exhibition will be located in Sewall Hall Room 402 from Sept. 26 to Oct. 31. The opening reception will be held on Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. Roesch will also perform original music at 9 p.m. on both the opening and closing dates.